What is Your Tuning Philosophy?

[Poontanir]

I have heard plenty of people call the Limited Slip Differential (LSD) a super tuning devise. In order to understand this tuning philosophy and hopefully other I've Started this thread.

Personally I start with Aero (if available), Springs and Ride Height.
I then move on to Dampers.
Followed by Anti-Roll Bars and Camber.
Finally I look to the LSD.

Using this and my suspension analysis calculator I have never need to use anything other than zero toe and limited LSD (if any).

Why do I avoid LSD and toe, well quite simple. LSD and toe increase tire wear and use up grip.

 

[Motor City Hami]

I think this in in response to me and a couple of others from another thread. I'll answer here in hopes to keep the other thread more clean and useful and we can muck this one up all we want.

I'm not sure we need another area for others to post their thoeries about tuning. Most people do that within their own garage. If you want to know what I think works in the game, there are two links in my signature that do that. If you want to know what I think works in the real world you will need to find my posts on redpepperracing.com and specmiata.com.

Poontanir - I haven't quite figured you out yet. You seem to be trying to develop calculations for all of the tuning adjustments but I am having a difficult time linking those thoughts to in-game tuning immprovements or reactions. I'm not sure how to use your guides to build or improve a tune. You currently have 61 total posts on GT Planet and I don't think I have seen one tune posted yet for one car? How can we judge if your calculations are useful if we cannot see how to link them to either your results or see how to use them for our own tuning improvements?

 

[Adrenaline]

I have heard plenty of people call the Limited Slip Differential (LSD) a super tuning devise.

I have never need to use anything other than zero toe and limited LSD (if any).

Why do I avoid LSD and toe, well quite simple. LSD and toe increase tire wear and use up grip.

You need to define 'limited LSD' and I'd like to know what you mean by 'use up grip' as well as seeing your data, or proof of toe 'increasing tire wear', before moving on with this discussion.

Poontanir - I haven't quite figured you out yet.

I always get a 'noobster/assaninetuner' feeling from him, but not all things match up.

 

[Motor City Hami]

I always get a 'noobster/assaninetuner' feeling from him, but not all things match up.

Now I understand a previous post that I saw in another thread.👍

 

[Adrenaline]

Now I understand a previous post that I saw in another thread.👍

It was also a legitimate question, as the archives didn't have it listed why he got banned. But, he was un-banned about a month back now I noticed. I was just curios what the last straw that broke the camel's back was?

 

[Beeblebrox237]

I often start by adjusting the springs, dampers, setting the toe to 0, giving the car a bit of camber, lowering it, and adjusting the anti-roll bars. I then adjust the aero and drive it. If it needs work, and it usually does, I adjust the springs, aero, and camber, and sometimes the anti-roll bars.

 

[Poontanir]

I think this in in response to me and a couple of others from another thread. I'll answer here in hopes to keep the other thread more clean and useful and we can muck this one up all we want.

Exactly My Thought.

Anyways, I don't know who "assaninetuner" is, but I'll clean up the misunderstanding of where I have come from. For the longest time, sense GT1, I never had trouble with tuning or driving around a bad tune. Then came the Formula Gran Turismo race series in GT5, and I couldn't get the car act right. I set out to find info online and saw all the "if you do this it does that" explanations that I knew already. Then I found the tuning links here on GTP were I saw some people working on formulas to predict how much of an adjustment is needed. Not fearing math I start playing with this myself and doing research. I found Optimum G's articles, a book titled "Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics", and a magazine "Racecar Engineering" with a wealth of info and formulas. If we recognizes that Gran Turismo is trying to be a simulator than it would make sense that these formulas would work to a reasonable degree for the game. So I set myself to work (while I had time) and gained a new level of understanding of vehicle dynamics. Being that GTP started me down this path I figured I would share my work with GTP.

My Tunes for the Formula Gran Turismo

I haven't had much time for racing or tuning lately given my busy schedule. I haven't had much motivation to work on my guide for using my calculator do to a lack of feedback and/or interest.

 

[Adrenaline]

First, you ignore any post relevant to the discussion, then provide 6 tunes, for the same car, of which has enough downforce to mask most issues you would regularly run into with a real car, further masked by the technicality required to run back to back lap times, and actually get an accurate comparison of what each change actually effected, but even moreso, you justify your tuning calculator, by using an example of 6 different tunes? Did your 1 calculator produce all 6 tunes? I haven't, nor do I intend to download it, but if it does provide what you've listed above, then disregard this. But my initial post still holds, on topic, valuable questions that would benefit this thread and the discussion at hand.

 

[Hermanvongerman]

Sorry to ask but why 0 toe? that does not make sense to me..... toe is required so that the wheel can align correctly when under acceleration and deceleration or when driving under a constant etc........... does it affect the tyre wear online that much? even at a low setting?


Am going to test 0 Toe settings on GT today.......

 

[nomis3613]

If we recognizes that Gran Turismo is trying to be a simulator than it would make sense that these formulas would work to a reasonable degree for the game. So I set myself to work (while I had time) and gained a new level of understanding of vehicle dynamics

I don't mean to sound rude but you need to understand that there ARE differences between what works IRL and what works in GT5. Therefore when people bring up RL theory here, they are rightly shot down with "that's nice, but does it work in GT5".

The other thing is that some people here are very knowledgeable about RL theory. So don't be surprised if you post a heap of in-depth RL theory and the only reply you get is 'yeah, we know that already". Good onya for doing the research, though, knowledge is always good and it's helpful to understand RL concepts as background to GT5 tuning.

Regarding the thread subject (very open-ended, basically means anything to do with tuning is fair game for this thread!), some of my theories are in the GT5 method in my sig.

Cheers,
Simon

 

[VTiRoj]

Sorry to ask but why 0 toe? that does not make sense to me..... toe is required so that the wheel can align correctly when under acceleration and deceleration or when driving under a constant etc........... does it affect the tyre wear online that much? even at a low setting?


Am going to test 0 Toe settings on GT today.......

I'm not sure GT even models that to be honest. I find my tyre wear is at its best when I use 0 zoe because there's no additional friction caused by the toe in/out. Sure, the differences are minimal, but every little helps right?

 

[Poontanir]

First, you ignore any post relevant to the discussion, then provide 6 tunes, for the same car,

Adrenaline - I can't decide if you are trying to attack me, get more info out of me or something else.

of which has enough downforce to mask most issues you would regularly run into with a real car, further masked by the technicality required to run back to back lap times, and actually get an accurate comparison of what each change actually effected, but even moreso, you justify your tuning calculator, by using an example of 6 different tunes?

Adrenaline - not sure what point you are making here.

Did your 1 calculator produce all 6 tunes? I haven't, nor do I intend to download it, but if it does provide what you've listed above, then disregard this. But my initial post still holds, on topic, valuable questions that would benefit this thread and the discussion at hand.

Adrenaline - My calculator does not produce tunes (sorry if I was misleading), my calculator analyses tunes. The thought is to give an idea as to what is happening and by how much. From there one can make adjustments and have an idea of what to expect from the car.

You need to define 'limited LSD' and I'd like to know what you mean by 'use up grip' as well as seeing your data, or proof of toe 'increasing tire wear', before moving on with this discussion.

I thought "limited LSD" would be straight forward enough to follow but I was wrong. minimal LSD = 5 initial 5 accel 5 decel. So limited LSD would be close to that. At any rate GT provides a standard Limited Slip Differential and Mitsubishi's Active Yaw Control Differential (unless I'm over looking something) that's it. The two most popular types Differential are the Salisbury and the torsion. Both use clutch packs to create drag within the differential or lock the differential; and both use the torque on the Differential to apply force on these clutch packs. The whole reason a differential exist is to allow wheels to spin independent of each other. A normal open differential works perfect when there is enough grip to put power down. If the suspension provides enough grip then a limited slip differential cause a car to push and chew up tires. As can be seen in karting were karters intentionally lift the inside rear tire so the kart will turn and not scuff tires or time.

Toe points the tires in different directions. While sidewall flex can allow tires to cope with toe and not wear in excess, too much toe will cause excess wear. Road cars run toe to cover up handling issues that arise from providing a comfortable ride and provide room for bending and movement of suspension components without effecting handling. In racing toe is checked so often and suspension components so strong and stiff that needing toe to offset movement should be unnecessary. Toe is a powerful tuning tool as it directly influences slip angles by pointing the tire in a different direction, toe does not reduce or increase slip angles, just points them differently.

I think I have explained myself clearly, but I'm normally wrong about that. Thank You nomis3613 for being reasonable with me. I'm not trying to change to world (or GTP for that matter) I just what to know what tuning philosophies people are using. Or in what order they set things up.

 

[Motor City Hami]

The two most popular types Differential are the Salisbury and the torsion. Both use clutch packs to create drag within the differential or lock the differential; and both use the torque on the Differential to apply force on these clutch packs.

Hmmm... The two Torsens sitting in my garage (one in the Miata and one spare) don't seem to have any clutch packs in them? I think you need to do some more reading on LSDs and maybe race car dynamics. I linked pics of most of the common LSDs in the LSD Guide Summaires in my sig.

I can recommend some really good car handling books. My tuning influences?
20 years of remote controlled car racing - factory sponsored driver.
8 seasons of SCCA road racing.
3 seasons of short track oval crewing.
Read every tuning article I can find.
- Stock Car Racing magazine.
- High Performance Handling Handbook by Don Alexander
- Going Faster, Skip Barber
- The Racing & High-Performance Tire by Paul Haney
- Secrets of Solo Racing by Henry Watts
- Tune to Win by Carroll Smith

The Carroll Smith book is the best book, hands down, that I have read for race car tuning. A highly recommended read for anyone looking to learn about going fast.

 

[Adrenaline]

not sure what point you are making here.

That the FGT is a poor platform to try and base your tuning... thoery, knowledge, calculator, analyzer, experience or whatever else you want to call it. In my opinion anyways.

My calculator does not produce tunes (sorry if I was misleading), my calculator analyses tunes.

Interesting. Have you analyzed other peoples tunes to test its accuracy, or more importantly, made changes, based on said analysis to create a better tune? For Example, take a tune of mine, or whoever you choose, analyse it with your program thingy, and then tell me what adjustments I should make, to make it faster/better etc?

Does your analyzer say 0 toe is always best? Front and back?

I thought "limited LSD" would be straight forward enough to follow but I was wrong. minimal LSD = 5 initial 5 accel 5 decel. So limited LSD would be close to that.

I think you're confusing the terms, minimal, limited and minimum.
'Minimal' or 'Limited' means that you barely changed anything from the default or stock setting (10/40/20). 5/5/5 is the 'minimum' numerically. So, am I to understand you start all tunes at 5/5/5? 'close to that' could mean any number of things. I just find it odd, for someone who seems to stand so strongly against the LSD's advantages, to provide such, broad and unspecific generalizations for how you tune it.

Toe...

Ugh, I assume this means you skipped what Nomis said? We know what toe is, cool story bro. I specifically said:

I'd like to...see your data, or proof of toe 'increasing tire wear'

Even if tire wear is decreased, is it by enough, to justify the sacrifice you lose in entry or exit ability, or mid turn stability? Do you have any type of data, proof, experience, examples... anything to back up these claims?

 

[MrGrado]

I tune mostly street cars recently, but for race cars I tune the car with the downforce at minimum. This lets me get the most mechanical grip out of the car, then I add downforce at the end.

I used to leave ride height at 0/0 and set spring rate at something reasonable. I would do some testing with dampers through trial and error and I would try get camber dialled in. Then tweaks to toe, LSD, ride height. I used to think that the most critical tuning was in the damper and camber settings.

I still will never just set camber at 2.5/2.0 or whatever and leave it without trying to maximise the potential. I test using trial and error.

My tunes are based on a not backwards suspension theory and recently are generally: nose down, higher than average camber, much higher than average LSD, positive front and rear toe, soft roll bars, medium spring rates.

 

[Highlandor]

Why do I avoid LSD and toe, well quite simple. LSD and toe increase tire wear and use up grip.

So wrong - I use toe (lots of it) and LSD and I usually get better tyre wear than most of the people I race against or know. We tend to use lower grip tyres too (e.g. 530pp sports soft and 585pp racing hards). I can easily get those tyres to last 20 miles no problem at all, flat out racing, and usually have 50% or more left on both tyres.

That's with toe at -0.20 / +0.20, camber at 2.5 or even 3 in some cars. Some cars have super stiff springs, other medium, some high roll bars, others soft.

Both tyres heat up evenly and wear out evenly - this is also vital, one set of tyres wears out or heats up more than the others then as soon as the "balance" is lost - BYE BYE tyres altogether as the car will just be all over the place.

It's all about knowng how to tune / setup the car for the regulations, then driving it accordingly. If you're getting bad tyre wear - guaranteed either your driving style or setup is causing it - 100%. Toe and LSD are EXCELLENT tools to help REDUCE tyre wear.

Example:

Back end of car too planted, causes understeer @ front, so people "force" the car into corners - BYE BYE front tyres.

Instead of tuning the front end, "loosen" the rear, the front will now turn more and tyre wear will be less.


Too soft or too hard setup also - same again, BYE BYE tyres, adapt your setup for each track. This is were a good balanced base/core to your setup is vital, a few quick and easy tweaks and the car is ready to race without burning up it's tyres.

Use everything - LSD, toe, camber, ride height etc etc etc - BUT everything must be working together, WITH each other. If the springs, dampers and anti roll bars are working against the LSD and ride height, BYE BYE tyres. Then you need to manage your tyres through your driving.

This all stems from only ever tuning online and always tuning for race distance with low grip tyres for long(er) races - this will teach you everything.

Offline tuning, super sticky tyres and mickey mouse 5 minute races will teach you nothing.

 

[Motor City Hami]

Both tyres heat up evenly and wear out evenly - this is also vital, one set of tyres wears out or heats up more than the others then as soon as the "balance" is lost - BYE BYE tyres altogether as the car will just be all over the place.

You just gave away the most key piece of information when talking about tire wear. And how do you accomplish balance? LSD, toe, springs, dampers, etc.

100% agree with Highlandor.

 

[Johnnypenso]

To answer the OP:

Three things:

Balance,
Balance and....
Balance

I'm not well versed in real life tuning practices, nor have I microanalyzed all the different aspects of tuning. When I first started tuning I tried to get to a car that I enjoyed driving which is balanced and it turns out that's also the fastest setup for me. Once I get a car balanced, meaning it turns in well but the back end doesn't get loose, it stays balanced through most corners and exits under power with the back end stable and the front not pushing. Once I get a car balanced I don't fool much with any part of the setup as I've never found much advantage beyond that point. After an initial test drive with the car on stock settings to see what PD has in mind for the car, I build on the stock settings to get the balance I want.

Wasn't my intention but it turns out balance is great for tire wear as well, as is my balanced driving style.

 

[Master_gamer438]

toe and camber have a effect on tire wear, whether oval track or road course, running 0 toe gives more grip yes, but you burn tires up faster. Running toe can save tire and effect how a car behaves when tires are low. Assuming you ran in a room with tire wear on surely you probably went 1 way with toe, your result was worse and moved on. There is such thing as too much toe/camber and can ruin a tune, assuming its a tire wear setup. Put it this way, 550PP CSL Nurburg/0 toe and camber 1 lap at 6'37"1xx, my tire wear setup - 2 laps at 6'39 and a 3rd lap at 6'41 range. I usually run nurburg enduros, 10 laps+. Running toe and camber slows me, but at 550PP try getting 3 laps. Some guys I run with barely make 2 laps. Try it.

 

[TheBull]

My tuning philosiphy is Handling

I always start with a base transmission on how fast the car should be running

Next i go to Ride Height as i beleive without the correct ride height the rest of the suspension will be wrong in relation to the track

Then i work down on the suspension if my ride height is balanced i go for a balanced spring rate ,if the car or track demands a lower front ride height than the rear ,i then proceed to bring the front spring ups and rear down from the stock values for balance or vice vera depending on the ride height i use

Dampers once again for me the damper set up is based upon track or car ,if the car has long slow corners the dampers must be high for precsision handling ,for fast sharp corners i lower the dampers

Anti rolls i only change to suit the track in the same way as dampers

Camber ,this i only change if 1 the front end slides or 2 most commonly the rear kicks out

Toe ,i use this to balance out the wear on tryes ,my theory being if both fronts or both rear wheels are burning at the same rate per lap then both my axles are balanced and i`m using my tyres to the mamimum

I then go to LSD to try and correct any wheel spin under/oversteer or braking issues

If and only if my car doesnt run stable or handle well i then look at ballast but its something i tend not to use unless abseloutley nesscary to the tune

Then i go back and fine tune my transmission

I Finally adjust my brakes, front /back bias and how much depending on tyre wear and which axel is doing most of the work

I always try to use racing soft tryres as they give the best grip when setting a tune ,i then slip to setting sheet b and use racing hard tyres and adjust the tune if nesscesary

 

[iamjajo]

Since most cars will go straight, my tuning is about the corners. I break corners into three parts: entry , mid, and exit. I adjust as needed to improve the car through each section.

Then I'm concerned with things like speed and tire wear.

 

[Motor City Hami]

Where did 'noobster/assaninetuner' go?

 

[XDesperado67]

Where did 'noobster/assaninetuner' go?

Just disappeared one day, never saw that he got banned or anything...

 

[VTiRoj]

Just disappeared one day, never saw that he got banned or anything...

I think he couldn't cope with having to argue with RJ and Adrenaline everyday anymore.

 

[XDesperado67]

I think he couldn't cope with having to argue with RJ and Adrenaline everyday anymore.

Either that or he decided against getting a second ps3 and got tired of being completely out of whack because of all the updates he couldn't get.

 

[KookiBirb]

Since most of the time I am doing time attacks on sports cars with comfort softs, then my tuning-based and work goes mostly to the handling. Making sure that my car's suspension setting is almost-perfect to whatever track I am racing at. But of course its never perfect.

Then when those exits in the corners are killing me whenever I increase the hp or torque of a car, RWD or MR in most cases, then thats when I fiddle around with the LSD. Thanks to Motor City Hami's guide. 👍

 

[Adrenaline]

Just disappeared one day, never saw that he got banned or anything...

He was banned temporarily. When I'm updating GT5Tune I'm pretty much forced to read every thread. Last month there was a new post in his thread, and while scrolling down I saw 'banned' next to his user name. I checked the thread to see what the official reason was, but mods hadn't listed it. Then 2-4 weeks ago when I was in that thread again, he no longer had the banned next to his name.

I first noticed his ban on 2/9/12 when funky posted in that thread.
AT's last post was Nov 11, 2011
Poontanir registered Dec 2, 2011

Like I said, I don't think they're the same, but that's what made me question it, to see what type of reaction I got.

 

[SolidSnake7735]

I r baboon

 

[VTiRoj]

I r baboon

SolidSnake7735